Josh LeBrun has high hopes for his Lady Cardinal basketball team as he heads into his second season as head coach at St. Mary.

“Last year was a lot of me trying to figure out the girls, and the girls trying to figure me out,” LeBrun said.

Now that there’s some familiarity between players and coach, LeBrun and his 15-girl roster expect to improve upon last year’s regular season mark of 10-10 using experience, grit and dedication to out match their opponents.

“I think we have a lot of experience coming back,” LeBrun said.

St. Mary brings back three starters, including senior Kelly Michel. Last season she earned all-conference honors. Junior Allie Mullaney and senior Anna Wolles are the other two returning starters who will bring valuable experience to this year’s squad. LeBrun said the girls won’t play too many teams with less size than they have, so defense will have to be a strong suit if the Lady Cardinals are to find success. “We’re going to look to put a lot of pressure on defensively,” he said. “We don’t have a lot of height so we’ll look to create a lot of turnovers to create easy baskets for our team.”

St. Mary will be challenged right away. They hosted Garretson, a team that got the best of them last season, Tuesday night, and travel to highly ranked DeSmet Thursday. “We have some tough competition the first week to find out who were are,” LeBrun said. “I think it’s a good thing to challenge us and find out what kind of team we have right away.”